The Daisy —a sour sweetened with a liqueur or flavored syrup, lightened with a splash of sparkling water, and served in a cocktail glass—is a close cousin to the fizz and, like that drink, is an American drink of the 1870s. See sour and fizz. While its origin has not been definitively proven, a credible claim was advanced in 1883 that it was created ten years before at Fred Eberlin’s popular bar, around the corner from the New York Stock Exchange, when one Billy Taylor imparted to bartender Frank Haas (1847–1924) the idea he had for a new drink. The Daisy first appeared in print in the 1876 second edition of Jerry Thomas’s Bar-Tender’s Guide, in versions made with brandy, whisky, gin, and rum, all sweetened with orange liqueur. See Thomas, Jerry. Haas’s version, upon which he built a long career, was specifically a whisky drink, with lime juice, raspberry syrup, soda water, and at least one other ingredient, but the brandy version also enjoyed some popularity, while other sweeteners found in the drink’s early years include yellow Chartreuse and orgeat. See Chartreuse and orgeat.
The Daisy enjoyed a wide popularity in the 1870s and 1880s, fell out of favor in the 1890s, and came back with a vengeance in the first part of the next decade. This time, it was primarily a gin drink, sweetened with grenadine, and now it was served in a tall glass, or even a beer stein, full of crushed ice, and it generally featured lime juice instead of the lemon used in the earlier version. See
Neither version survived Prohibition in its original form, but both proved surprisingly influential: the first is one of the progenitors of the Sidecar and the Margarita, while the second spawned the Tequila Sunrise and the Tequila Daisy. See Sidecar; Margarita; Tequila Sunrise; and Tequila Daisy. Neither version, however, has been prominent in the twenty-first-century cocktail renaissance. See cocktail renaissance.
Recipe (Whisky Daisy): Shake with ice: 60 ml rye whisky, 15 ml lime juice, 10 ml orange curaçao, 15 ml raspberry syrup. Strain into large cocktail glass and add 25 ml sparkling water.
Recipe (Gin Daisy): Shake with ice: 45 ml London dry gin, 15 ml lime juice, 15 ml grenadine. Strain into tall glass full of cracked ice and add 45 ml sparkling water. Garnish elaborately.
“Brooklyn at Last Gets Its Cocktail.” New York Herald, September 9, 1910, 2.
Ensslin, Hugo. Recipes for Mixed Drinks. New York: Mud Puddle, 1916.
“Mysterious and Fascinating Drink.” Rochester Democrat, October 8, 1902, 6.
“What Brokers Drink.” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 25, 1883, 5.
By: David Wondrich